The Baltimore County union. [volume] (Towsontown, Md.) 1865-1909, 1887-05-21
SIMPLICITY IN FUNERALS.
Some Very Sensible Observations That
Should be Needed.
Philadelphia Times.

Ph1tGdetphaG Ianes'
Notwithstanding the earnest efforts made by
many ministers and leading public journals to
restrain the excessive cost of funerals the expen-
sive display in the burial of the dead is increasing
rather than diminishing. Ifthis extravagant and
utterly uncompensating expenditure in funerals
confined to people of abundant means who
can afford any outlay on funeral occasions, it
would be matter of little or concern to the
public but so far as there has been any growth
of simplicity in funerals, it has been chiefly among
the more intelligent and opulent people, while
those who can least afford extravagant funerals,
are compelled by what they regard as an imperi-
GUS custom, to exhibitgther appreciation of their
dead by the wanton outlay Of money In their
burial.
great funeral parade on the burial of the pri-
vate citizen is not only unreasonable, but it fair
ly crosses the line of vulgar display. Grief for
the dead is the most sacred of the worlds many
snrrnws. and it is the last thing that shnnld be
paraded before the unsympathetic multitude. In
deed, the burial of the dead should be as far
moved as possible from the outside world. The
dead should be sacred to the gaze and loving off,
ces of those who mourn for them and there
should be absolute exclusion of the curious idlers
whose presence sadly jars the sanctity of grief
So ostentatious has become the display of the
merest regulation respect for the dead, that many
of the death notices in the public journals have
added to them the wise Neutrality-suspicious. omit
flowers" and many others have the still better ad-
monition-Interment private" These admoni-
tions, forced by the love of lavish display teach
the lesson that all should earn and the lesson that
would save thousands of poor families from star
vation or severes sacrifice for months after funer-
al, merely to crafty the vulgar taste for vain pomp
=. H. h,-;a 81 of fba lad
This tendency to parade and display on funeral
occasions ia oppressive upon the largest portion of
citizens in every community, for the majority OF
the people in every city or neighborhood are in
moderate or straitened circumstances. They feel
compelled to initiate those of fortune in ostenta-
tious respect for the dead, and, between costly
caskets flowers, carriages and decking whole fam
lilies in the barbarous habiments of woe, they
often involve themselves in debts which they can
not pay or must practice the severest selfdenial
for months thereafter to defray the cost of what is
simply mockery of honest grief 1t is not only
needless oppression of persons of humble means,
but it is buresque of the sincere sorrow that is
felt for the dead. The assumption that love for
the dead is exhibited in profusion Of costly How
ers or in a costly casket or in long line of cost
ly carriages for idle lookerson is simple farcical
1t strips the love for the dead of its hoest offices
and transforms funeral into the empty pOmp of
a vulgar parade, while it impoverishes many to
the verge of want. And why Is 1t doneI simply
because many of those who can afford it, make
parade of funerals, as if parade and extravaganza
were tributes of respect for the dead; and the
poor, often more sincere in their grief are taught
that the measure of respect for their loved ones
who are called away, is the measure Of pOmp and
extravaganza exhibited in their burial.
The world is growing in intelligence, and as 1t
advances in enlightened civilization the simplicity
of funerals and of open exhibition of grief for the
dead, will surely follow. just as Intelligence IN
creases, the love of hollow pomp and ceremony is
diminished, and the serverest simplicity in the
burial of the dead will be certain outgrowth OF
higher standard of culture among the people.
The vulgar display of studied extravaganza Is a
relic Of ignorance, as the ostentatious parade OF
woe in unhealthy and unsightly Grape is relic OF
barbarism, adopted and softened by the caprice OF
fashion and both insult the sincere grief OF the
honest heart. The burial of the dead is solely the
affair of the sorrow. smitten household, and be-
reavement can have no taste or tolerance Tor the
pageant that invites the idle multitude and that
exacts oppressive tribute from the poor
There is every reason for simplicity in funerals.
npIieiJy only thing that harunouTzes Wrtn
the grief of the home that is shadowed by the
angel of sorrow and the ostentatious display of
bereavement under the ftu regulations of fashion,
ofends the afectionate memory OF the dead. Let
pulpit and press and intelligent teachers of every
class unite to bring into disfavor the ostentaious
display of costly funerals and costly fantastic
mourning apparel, and the poor will not alone be
protected from needless and oppressive expendl-
ture, but all will be protected from the vulgar
pomp and ceremony which ever mock those who
sincerely mourn the loss of their household gods.